Psalms 78:49

I say then of these crooked and embittering persons, "How often they exasperated Him in the desert, and provoked Him to wrath in the waterless place!" [Psalm 78:40]. "And they turned themselves and tempted God, and exasperated the Holy One of Israel" [Psalm 78:41]. He is repeating that same unbelief of theirs, of which He had made mention above. But the reason of the repetition is, in order that there may be mentioned also the plagues which He inflicted on the Egyptians for their sakes: all which things they certainly ought to have remembered, and not to be ungrateful. Lastly, there follows what? "They remembered not His hands, in the day when He redeemed them from the hand of the troubler" [Psalm 78:42]. And he begins to speak of what things He did to the Egyptians: "He set in Egypt His signs, and His prodigies in the plain of Thanis" [Psalm 78:43]: "and He turned their rivers into blood, and their showers lest they should drink" [Psalm 78:44], or rather, "the flowings of waters," as some do better understand by what is written in Greek, τὰ ὀμβρήματα, which in Latin we call scaturigines, waters bubbling from beneath. "He sent upon them the dog-fly, and it ate them up; and the frog, and it destroyed them" [Psalm 78:45]. "And He gave their fruit to the mildew, and their labours to the locust" [Psalm 78:46]. "And He slew with hail their vineyards, and their mulberry trees with frost" [Psalm 78:47]. "And He gave over to the hail their beasts of burden, and their possessions to the fire" [Psalm 78:48]. "He sent upon them the anger of His indignation, indignation and anger and tribulation, a visitation through evil angels" [Psalm 78:49]. He made a way to the course of His anger, and their beasts of burden He shut up in death [Psalm 78:50]. "And He smote every first-born thing in the land of Egypt, the first-fruits of their labours in the tabernacles of Cham" [Psalm 78:51].

He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger,....

He made a way, or (as the word is) he weighed a path, to his anger. He did not cast it upon them uncertainly, but by weight. His anger was weighed with the greatest exactness in the balances of justice; for, in his greatest displeasure, he never did, nor ever will do, any wrong to any of his creatures: the path of his anger is always weighed.

He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble. His last arrow was the sharpest. He reserved the strong wine of his indignation to the last. Note how the psalmist piles up the words, and well he might; for blow followed blow, each one more staggering than its predecessor, and then the crushing stroke was reserved for the end. By sending evil angels among them. Messengers of evil entered their houses at midnight, and smote the dearest objects of their love. The angels were evil to them, though good enough in themselves; those who to the heirs of salvation are ministers of grace, are to the heirs of wrath executioners of judgment. When God sends angels, they are sure to come, and if he bids them slay they will not spare. See how sin sets all the powers of heaven in array against man; he has no friend left in the universe when God is his enemy.

He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble. His last arrow was the sharpest. He reserved the strong wine of his indignation to the last. Note how the psalmist piles up the words, and well he might; for blow followed blow, each one more staggering than its predecessor, and then the crushing stroke was reserved for the end. By sending evil angels among them. Messengers of evil entered their houses at midnight, and smote the dearest objects of their love.